....and one from the followers of Baba Ramdev!

On June 7, 2011, soon after Baba Ramdev's 'fast unto death' was disrupted by the Delhi Police, I received a similarly absurd mail as the one I mentioned in my last blog. LOKPAL BILL : JUST A MISS CALL AWAY +912261550789 Govt. of India put a condition that 25 CRORES of people support is needed to implement 'LOKPAL-BILL'4 this we just have to GIVE A MISSED call (free) to the number - +912261550789After giving a missed call to this no. u'll receive a thanks msg. Forward this 2 as many...

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Irrationality of Anna's Camp Followers

Carvaka One of the most distressing aspects of the ongoing anti-corruption movement in India is the absolute lack of skepticism among a significant section of the camp followers of Anna Hazare (and, is there any need to say,  among the followers of the contortionist Baba Ramdev). In their effort to get others in their bandwagon, some of them write nonsense email messages and others forward them without applying their mind.   These seemingly educated class of agitators who network through...

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Distinguished Service to Humanism Award - 2011

Prof Narendra Nayak and Mr VB Rawat from India were conferred with the Distinguished Service to Humanism Award by the World Humanist Congress held in Oslo this month. The other awardee this year is Mr David Pollock of UK. The award was instituted by International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a world umbrella organisation embracing Humanist, atheist, rationalist, secularist, skeptic, laique, ethical cultural,  freethought and similar organisations world-wide. The Distinguished Service to Humanism Award recognizes,...

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Anna Upsurge and the Social Movements

Ram PuniyaniAnna Hazare’s second fast (August 2011) in Delhi, demanding the acceptance of his teams’ draft for Janlokpal bill has raised many different debates about the nature of this upsurge and how the social action groups, engaged in the process of struggle for Human rights of different sections of society, should relate to such movements. Anna Hazare's hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi (Image courtesy: wikipedia) Just to recall the first such fast was taken by Hazare was undertaken...

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Atheists and Agnostics of Pakistan

Atheists and Agnostics of Pakistan have recently started a website to, we quote from their website, "promote secular causes and the separation of religion and state. We advocate the rights of women and minorities, as well as secular humanist values and free speech. PAA is about rational thought, compassion, science, freedom and education. Above all, we provide a forum for freethinkers in Pakistan to get together, share ideas and strive for common ambitions".   The website is still in its...

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Science versus Miracles - Download

Premanand’s popular book, “Science versus Miracles”, has not been available for some time now. Since Premanand himself was the distributor of the books he published and since he did not make any specific arrangement to print and distribute the books he brought out under Indian Skeptic logo, after his death there was nobody to carry on the job.   “Science versus Miracles” was and continues to be a handy manual for those activists who want to debunk the so called “miracles” performed by...

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Materialism in India: A Synoptic View

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya   0. Many, if not most, people nowadays go straight to the internet rather than look up a book to know something about anything under the sun. There are hundreds, if not thousands of files on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata system of philosophy there. Regrettably, many of them, though well-intentioned, are ill-informed and highly misleading. I am an old hand researching for decades on the history of materialism in India (see my Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, Firenze...

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Dr. Swamy, Friends and Limits of Freedom of Expression

Ram Puniyani It is not a very easy task to decide as to where the freedom of expression ends and Hate speech begins. A lot of perception about this depends on one’s convictions about the underlying ideologies which are being talked about. At another level how democratic space is subverted for anti democratic agenda is a serious issue. The challenge is to combat Hate ideologies and Hate Speech within the democratic system, to protect it from being subverted by sectarian ideologies in the name of democratic freedom.  These questions...

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Why I Am a Secular Humanist

An Interview with Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka [Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and in Diaspora to be so honoured. In 1994, he was designated UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Goodwill...

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Terror has political Goals: Religion should be for Humanism

Ram Puniyani After being attacked by the bombs of the terrorists (13/7, 2011), we are facing the barrage from the ideologues of Hate and divisiveness. Many a ideologues of religious nationalism have come out with outpourings associating religion, Islam and so Muslims with terrorism and the need to confront this attack of terror by uniting as Hindus, voting a Hindu party, taking away the citizenship rights of Muslims, and declaring India as a Hindu nation (Subramanian Swamy 16/7, 2011). Swamy says the terrorism is an attack of Islam on Hinduism....

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Science Communication & Science Popularisation

XXXV INDIAN SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS Wardha-2011 Prof. S.P. Verma, Chairman , Panel  on Science  communication( Indian Social Science Congress -Wardha-2011) has sent the following mails to us. Those who are interested in contributing to the topic mentioned in Prof Verma's mail may contact him for further details. Prof SP Verma's email ID is verma1946@gmail.com I CALL  FOR  PAPERS /STUDY  REPORTS Dear  Colleagues, In continuation  of  my  earlier ...

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